


we're half awake (in a fake empire)

by fictionalcandie



Series: superhero soul mates [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-24 03:29:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4903879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionalcandie/pseuds/fictionalcandie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Whadya think it’ll feel like?” he asks.</p><p>Bucky Barnes rolls his head to look at Steve, smiles when he catches Steve already looking at him. It makes his dark eyes twinkle like the wintery stars they’ve been—well, that <em>Bucky’s</em> been staring at.</p><p>“What do I think <em>what’ll </em>feel like?” Bucky asks, even though he probably has a pretty good idea what Steve means. He’s a jerk like that.</p><p>“Your soul bond,” Steve answers anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we're half awake (in a fake empire)

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this for over a year—since way back when there was only gonna be one fic in this AU, and it was gonna be a short one, like maaaaybe 5k words short—and now here it is, the first. In a series. And it's...longer than I intended. As usual. Whatever, it's done now, and I'm posting it. XD Enjoy!
> 
> With many, many thanks to [ace](http://archiveofourown.org/users/alia_castiella/pseuds/ace) for very kindly pre-reading this and giving opinions, and to [duva](http://archiveofourown.org/users/duva) for doing a stellar beta job as always. Title is from the song _Fake Empire_ by The National.

At seventeen, Steve Rogers can’t stop thinking about his best friend’s soul bond.

He knows what everybody does, the stuff you learn in school, and just from hearing family members mention theirs in passing—but Dad’s been gone longer than Steve can remember, and Ma doesn’t really like talking about what it was like when she could still feel him with her everyday, so he hasn’t actually heard that much, outside of the boring old lessons.

Steve knows awareness of your bond is supposed to start at some point during the younger person’s eighteenth birthday, or occasionally a few hours after. He knows that the early, weak stage of a bond is supposed to be like having somebody else in the back of your mind, sharing emotions and occasionally physical sensation—and if you’re really lucky you might be able to exchange thoughts in actual _words_ sometimes, even before getting the full bond. He knows that everyone has a soul mate, somewhere, except sometimes that first sense of the bond is all they get, and it’s just a gaping hole where another mind should be; those are the people whose soul mates are dead. That’s all Ma’s got left of her bond with Dad.

When, if you’re really lucky, you and your soul mate find each other and touch skin-to-skin the first time, the bond solidifies, and then—and you—

Well. _Something_ happens, and it’s supposed to be so much _more_ than just the little shadow of a bond that everybody gets before they actually meet their soul mates.

That’s pretty much all of Steve’s knowledge, really.

“Whadya think it’ll feel like?” he asks.

Bucky Barnes rolls his head to look at Steve, smiles when he catches Steve already looking at him. It makes his dark eyes twinkle like the wintery stars they’ve been—well, that _Bucky’s_ been staring at.

“What do I think _what’ll_ feel like?” Bucky asks, even though he probably has a pretty good idea what Steve means. He’s a jerk like that.

“Your soul bond,” Steve answers anyway.

“Well I don’t know, do I,” Bucky says. “I haven’t got it yet, have I.”

“But it’s almost your birthday.”

“Yeah, almost, which is why I _haven’t got_ it yet.”

“You think you’re gonna?” Steve presses.

Bucky scoffs. “Everybody does,” he says. Then, after a judicious pause, “Eventually.”

“Not _everyone_ ,” Steve says, and he fights off a frown, because there _are_ the unfortunate few who never get a bond, or even the horrible sense of broken possibility that comes with the death of their bonded. Steve suspects he’s one of them; who’d want _him_?

Bucky, though—Bucky can’t be one of them. Bucky’s one of the only good things in Steve’s life, Steve won’t _allow_ Bucky to be bondless, even if it were a possibility. It’s not, though, because Bucky’s clever and slick and _handsome_ , and on top of that he’s so very _good_ , and guys like that _always_ have soul mates. Really, really lucky ones.

“Everybody who matters,” Bucky says, cutting into Steve’s thoughts, his voice taking on a dismissive, amused note. He reaches out with his right hand, catches Steve by the back of his neck. He drags Steve in close and musses his hair with his left hand, fingers warm where they rub Steve’s scalp. “ _Relax_ , Steve. I’ll get mine when I get it.”

Steve leans into him, just a little. “You sound real sure,” he mumbles, not looking at Bucky.

“Because I am. I _will_. And you’ll be the first to know.”

“Promise?”

Bucky knocks the sides of their heads together, gentle. “Course, kid,” he says. There’s a pause, and Steve twists to look at him, finds him grinning fiercely. “Gotta introduce you to ‘em as my best pal before your coughing has a chance to scare ‘em away, right?”

By the end of it, he’s laughing.

“I hate you,” Steve groans, elbowing Bucky in the ribs. He’s blushing and he knows it, he _hates_ it.

All it does is make Bucky pull him closer and laugh even harder.

#

Bucky comes around Steve’s apartment the day after his birthday, because of course he does.

“Well?” Steve asks, the minute he opens the door. He doesn’t bother to be any more specific than that, but he doesn’t need to.

Bucky knows exactly what Steve means, because of course he does. He shrugs, and rolls his eyes, and says, “Turns out, I got nothin’.”

Of all the ways that Bucky could’ve answered Steve’s question, _that_ isn’t what Steve expected. Hoped for, maybe, in the privacy of his own mind, but definitely not what he _expected_.

Steve’s staring, he knows it is. His eyes must be unpleasantly wide, because Bucky won’t meet them.

“Nothing, really, Buck?”

“Nah. It’s not a big deal, Stevie,” Bucky replies. His voice is light, casual; Steve wonders if he can really be as unconcerned as he seems. “Just means my soul mate’s younger than me. Like you.”

“Right, yeah. I mean, no way you don’t have one, huh.”

Bucky grins, and it’s almost convincing. “Exactly. Why would a swell fella like me be bondless?”

“Ain’t no reason,” Steve swears, nodding.

As far as Steve’s concerned, Bucky deserves the best soul mate in the whole world. He definitely has a soul bond, because _of course_ he does, and it’ll come in really soon. Steve knows it will.

Except that it doesn’t.

#

Days pass, and weeks, and months, and then it’s almost July and Bucky’s soul bond still hasn’t come in.

Bucky’s folks invite Steve to have dinner with them on his eighteenth birthday, and Steve’s Ma has a shift at the hospital so she doesn’t mind it—which takes away Steve’s one good polite excuse to beg off.

Steve knows why the Barneses are insisting. Bucky does, too, he’s gotta, if the way he keeps _looking_ at Steve with the sly grin in his eyes that doesn’t ever make it down to his mouth is any sign.

“It’s just awkward,” Steve hisses at Bucky, on the steps outside the Barneses’ door, trying to struggle out from under Bucky’s arm before Bucky can actually get him up and into the house. “What if we’re here and it doesn’t come in? It hasn’t yet, and it’s after _four_. What if it doesn’t, what if the clock hits tomorrow and we don’t feel _anything_?”

“Well,” Bucky says, pulling Steve in closer with the elbow he has around the back of Steve’s neck, “I dunno that I feel _nothin’_.”

“You know what I mean, Bucky!”

Bucky sighs. His arm goes just slack enough that Steve can pull away to look up at Bucky, but not any farther. “Yeah, well, and so what if it doesn’t come in?” he asks.

Steve shrugs, tense.

“So what if it doesn’t, and we’re not soul mates?” Bucky says, half a breath quieter, and Steve goes still.

They haven’t said it before. They’ve thought it, or at least Steve has, and other people obviously have too—Bucky’s parents, his little sisters, are inside that door thinking it _right now_ —but nobody’s ever _said it_.

“Buck—” Steve starts.

Bucky’s hold tightens again. Steve lets himself be pulled in, side of his face pressed against Bucky’s shoulder.

“I’m telling you right now, it’s not gonna change anything. You’re still gonna be stuck with me to the end of the line, ya punk.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, grinning a bit against his will even though Bucky can’t see it. “I know.”

#

“You’re not seriously hiding from my folks, are you?”

“Like I said,” Steve mutters, choosing not to look up at Bucky looming over him. “It’s _embarrassing_.”

He doesn’t mention that it’s less Bucky’s parents, and more Bucky’s _sisters_ that he’s avoiding. They keep giving him these _looks_. They all look the way Steve feels, inside his chest.

Bucky’s knee knocks deliberately against Steve’s shoulder, then Bucky’s folding himself down to sit on the edge of the roof next to him. There’s not much to see, looking out over the city at just after midnight; most everything’s dark. Even all the fireworks have long since stopped.

“Hell, they don’t care,” Bucky says. “You know that, right?”

Steve scoffs. Just a little. He knows Bucky’s not lying, but somewhere deep down, some part of Steve still can’t help thinking that maybe Bucky’s parents are relieved. That maybe they’re grateful this tiny, sickly, flat-broke punk isn’t their precious only son’s soul mate, after all. Maybe they’re pleased, and maybe they’re _right_ to be.

“It didn’t come in,” is all he says, though.

“Yeah, and they don’t care,” Bucky replies, immediately. “They wouldn’t’ve minded if it did come in, and they’re not gonna fuss that it didn’t.”

“Of _course_ they won’t,” Steve says, scowling.

Bucky’s elbow isn’t as bony as Steve’s, but it’s plenty sharp when he digs it into Steve’s ribs. “It doesn’t matter to them. And it really doesn’t matter to _me_.”

Steve stays quiet. He doesn’t _really_ want to argue with Bucky. It’s not like Bucky’s even _wrong_.

Maybe it’s not that anyone else might be secretly relieved. Maybe it’s that _Steve_ is actually the opposite of relieved. Maybe he was sort of hoping that he and Bucky _were_ actually soul mates.

Bucky leans into Steve with his shoulder, a steady, solid weight all down Steve’s side. “I told you, Steve. Soul bond or not, you’re not getting rid of me.”

“Yeah, Buck,” Steve says. “I know.”

#

Steve is still eighteen when the TB gets into Ma’s lungs and she dies, and his soul bond still hasn’t come in. He’s all alone in the world for real, now, the way he’s been feeling for months.

He’s trying to not let it get to him—after all, Ma had to wait five years for hers to come in, and she was strong for that, and for after, when Dad died during the War and left her with a baby to raise and no-one to lean on—but a small, hidden, shameful part of him wishes it had come in by now. Wishes that there was someone in the back of his head to wrap him up in warm affection every time he can’t help reaching out toward that place where the bond should be, in the moments where he really thinks about how he’ll never see Ma again, never talk to her, that he’s well and truly alone, now.

Except, he reminds himself, as Bucky slides into the pew at the front of the church, into the seat next to Steve, he’s not really _alone_. He may not have any family left, may not have a soul mate yet, but he has _Bucky_ —who’s scooting in close to Steve and taking hold of his arm with a firm, reassuring hand.

An even smaller part of Steve, buried down as deep as he can put it, still wishes that his soul mate was Bucky. It would be so much _simpler_.

After the service, Bucky’s parents catch them outside the church. The girls are hanging back by the church doors, whispering together and looking subdued.

“Steve,” Mrs. Barnes calls, before Steve can make good at pretending he hasn’t seen them waving at him. “Steve!”

Reluctantly, everything in him cringing away from talking to _anyone_ right now, anyone but Bucky, Steve stops, and waits, lets Mr. and Mrs. Barnes come up to him and Bucky.

“You have our sympathies, son,” Mr. Barnes says, first thing, and he sounds as sincere about it as Steve imagines anyone can when they didn’t especially care about the deceased themselves.

“Thank you,” Steve manages.

“It means a lot to him,” Bucky fills in. He gives Steve’s arm a firm, pointed squeeze; it makes Steve feel a little better, even if that wasn’t how Bucky meant it.

Mr. Barnes is giving Bucky raised eyebrows for butting in, or maybe just for still having his hand on Steve, but Mrs. Barnes just gives Steve one of those sad, horrible smiles that everyone in the neighborhood seems to be so good at all of a sudden.

“Let us give you a ride to the cemetery,” she says, waving behind her at their car, parked on the curb a little way down the street from the church. The gesture makes her bracelet slide down her wrist, and Steve fixates on it for a moment, the pale pearls bright against her somber black gloves—while Mrs. O’Brien next door, who’d sat and cried with Steve the last three nights running because she’s going to miss Ma too, had to wear her white Sunday gloves to the service because she only has the two pairs, and both of those heavily mended, can’t afford a pair just for _funerals_. It’s an odd thing to focus on. It’s all so _unfair_.

Steve only realizes he hasn’t responded and that he needs to because Bucky gives his arm another squeeze, harder this time.

“I—“ he starts to say, ready to turn the Barneses and their distant kindness down on principle, but before he can, he catches sight of Bucky’s eyes, big and dark and pleading. He finds himself saying, “Yeah, thank you, that’ll be—That’s kind of you.”

Bucky’s expression eases, and he smiles, just a little. Something in Steve’s chest settles. He follows Bucky to the car.

At the cemetery, Bucky gets his parents and sisters to wait in the car, while Steve goes and stands alone at the grave next to his father’s empty one, the engraved stone with his father’s name that was all that made it back from Europe for them to put to rest. He watches as his mother’s casket is lowered, watches the first few shovelfuls of dirt go in on top of it. Then he turns away and sees Bucky, leaning against the hood of his parents’ car with his ankles crossed and his hands in his pocket, worried lines on his face as he watches Steve watch Ma’s body get buried.

Ma’s with Dad now, where she’s always belonged. Standing in a cemetery longing for people who are already gone isn’t where _Steve_ belongs. Until and unless his soul bond comes in, he belongs next to the man who’s right over there, perched on the edge of a car in the cold and the damp, waiting because he thinks Steve needs him to.

Steve knows he can’t ever have Bucky in any _real_ sense—certainly not romantically, not without a soul bond to excuse them to other people, whatever Steve might wish sometimes when he’s sitting alone in the dark at night, or when Bucky smiles at him just so. He’s got Bucky’s promise not to ever leave him, though, and that’s almost as good as being soul mates, just without hearing Bucky in the back of his head all the time. It’s good enough, and way better than nothing.

Steve walks away from the grave, toward Bucky.

#

Pearl Harbor gets attacked, and America joins the war in Europe, and the Army starts drafting every able-bodied man in the neighborhood. In _every_ neighborhood.

Bucky gets called up almost right away, snapped up on strength of the results of his physical combined with his status as bondless. The way Bucky tells it, the recruiters got real interested, real fast, when he brought that up. Steve supposes it makes sense—when you’re fighting a war, having men lay down their lives, you’d rather they not be leaving any soul mates broken in their wake, not if you can help it otherwise.

The Army still won’t take Steve, though. Not even being bondless is enough for them to let him in.

Steve can’t help speculating, forlornly in his own head, whether things would be different if he could put down _bonded_ as his status, list Bucky as his soul mate. Even though it isn’t the truth.

They’d never discussed lying about it, not ever. It’s been five years and more since either of them turned eighteen and both their minds are still empty, yet they haven’t talked about it even once. Steve is pretty sure Bucky’d go along with it, though, if Steve suggested it. Bucky doesn’t seem to mind doing anything, if it’s for Steve. He probably wouldn’t mind lying.

(Sometimes Steve wonders if Bucky’s _already_ lying, if he’s got a soul mate he’s not admitting to so that Steve can keep following him around without feeling guilty. Just the idea makes Steve want to punch Bucky in the face—almost as much the idea that he’s telling the truth, that he hasn’t got a soul bond and won’t ever have one, makes Steve want to punch _the universe_ in the face.)

It wouldn’t change anything, though, not really. Steve knows that, in his heart, even when he lets himself daydream about it—he’d still be too sick to get in, and Bucky’s _too_ fit for being bonded to Steve to have bumped him down in any meaningful way on the draft list.

Actually, it might make them even less willing to take Steve, which doesn’t even sound possible but probably is. He’d still be just as likely to get killed, but bonded, he’d be more likely to take Bucky—already a sergeant, and doing something with rifles that it sounds like makes the brass _drool_ —with him when he went.

That’s the sole upside to not being bonded to Bucky; the knowledge that when Steve finally manages to get the Army to take him, even if he winds up dead, Bucky won’t be going with him.

It’s the only reason Steve’s ever been less than disappointed not to have a soul mate.

#

Dr. Erskine comes to Steve the night before he’s supposed to receive the doctor’s serum, with schnapps and a speech that’s half reassurance and half warning. Steve listens respectfully, and when Dr. Erskine demands a promise of him, he gives it readily, and sincerely.

Some people might not understand the difference between a perfect soldier and a good man, but Steve does—and there’s only one of those two labels he’s always been determined to earn.

Joining the Army was never about _being a soldier_.

Dr. Erskine seems to get that, because he drinks his schnapps with a smile for Steve.

“Actually, Doctor,” Steve blurts, just as Dr. Erskine is standing to leave, because that’s the other inescapable thing about Steve: when it comes right down to it, he’s never really managed to completely give up hope. “I do have—Well. There’s one more question.”

Dr. Erskine pauses, looks down at Steve with his kind, serious eyes. “Yes?”

“You said your serum—enhances. What would it do to a soul bond?”

There’s a long pause. Steve turns his eyes to his books.

“I understood that you,” Dr. Erskine starts, eventually. “That is, your _papers_ say that you were without.”

“Well, I mean. At, uh, the moment. But it could come, y’know, later,” Steve says, and he’s stammering, aware he’s not entirely making sense but not sure how else to say it, “and, I guess. Uh.”

“I see,” Dr. Erskine says, knowingly. He very kindly doesn’t mention that most people whose bond hasn’t come in by the time they’re Steve’s age—especially since they’re _at war_ —don’t usually get one.

“I was just wondering,” Steve mutters. He’s staring so hard at his books he wouldn’t be surprised if his gaze bore holes in them, for real. “Well?”

“I can only speculate. Schmidt was bondless. He seemed proud of it.”

“So, what’s your speculation, then?” Steve presses.

“Well. The serum amplifies everything, yes? I don’t see why it should not do the same to your soul bond.”

“You don’t think it’ll hurt it, then?”

Dr. Erskine is quiet for a bit. Steve appreciates that he actually seems to be thinking about his answer, instead of just trying to reassure Steve with empty platitudes.

“I should think it can only make it stronger,” Dr. Erskine says, finally.

“Right,” Steve says. He feels relieved, even though he knows it’s probably pointless. Why should it be a relief for something not to be in danger, when it’s something he doesn’t even have to begin with? “Thanks, Doctor.”

Dr. Erskine smiles, and pats Steve’s shoulder as he walks away. “Get some sleep.”

#

Agent Carter gets sent to escort Steve to, well, wherever it is they’re going for the procedure. They didn’t actually tell Steve that part, and he hasn’t asked, because he doesn’t figure the _where_ is the important part. She greets him politely, and the driver grunts, then it’s silent in the car for a long while.

“You really don’t have anyone, then?” Agent Carter asks, after a while of riding in silence. She gestures around at the car, which only holds the two of them and the driver. “To come support you? Dr. Erskine is a genius and I know he believes in this serum, but the procedure could still be dangerous.”

“I guess I don’t,” Steve says, shrugging. He’s not very comfortable with the question—Bucky’d be here, Steve knows he would, except Bucky’s somewhere on the front lines, fighting without Steve to watch his back.

“Oh. I’m sorry, then.”

“What about you?” Steve asks. “Surely a swell dame like you—I mean, an agent—a _lady_ —“

Agent Carter smiles at him. “You really have no idea how to talk to a woman, do you.”

Steve flushes, and looks away. “Not unless they’re old enough to be my mother, no,” he admits.

“What is it you’re trying to ask me?” she asks, and her voice is kind.

“What about your soul mate? You must have one, right?” Steve asks. And flushing darker, as he hears the way it came out, “I mean, you’re so—and you—“

“I have one, yes,” Agent Carter says, cutting him off before he can babble himself into a hole.

“What are they like?”

“Gentle. And brave. He’s a soldier, somewhere.”

Steve can’t hide his surprise, looking back over at her with wide eyes. “You haven’t met?”

“We’re at war,” Agent Carter says, and she says it calmly, but there’s steel in her voice. “It would be worse to lose a solid bond, than a fledgling one, even if we were able to shield our minds from each other.”

Which, Steve and everyone else knows from what they tell you at school, not everyone _can_. Ma had always said that she and Dad could, but Bucky’s folks couldn’t, which was why Bucky’s dad had to be sedated while Bucky was being born, and then again for each of his sisters’ births. “Oh.”

“I can wait, and so can he,” Agent Carter finishes.

Steve looks away from her, looks down again. “That makes sense, I guess.”

He imagines Agent Carter must be watching him, eyes heavy on the side of his face. Steve’s just starting to hope they’re almost to their destination, just to escape the car, when she says, “It’s not the only way to handle it. Just because it’s our solution doesn’t mean it’s for everyone.”

“Of course not,” Steve says, automatically.

“If your way is to tell—”

The car pulls up to the curb outside an old book store, and Agent Carter cuts her words off.

“We’re here,” she says, unnecessarily, and gets out of the car to lead Steve inside, all business again.

#

Playing at being a dancing monkey isn’t all that fun, though Steve supposes he’s pretty good at it, but it’s not the worst thing that could happen to Steve, after he steps out of the chamber a new man and they _still_ refuse to let him fight. It’s far, far from the worst thing.

Steve finds out what _that_ is, when Agent Carter comes to talk to him the first time they take him over to do a show for the troops.

“The 107th?” he says, heavy horror in his gut that he can’t keep out of his voice, Agent Carter’s bemused, sympathetic expression slipping further out of focus with every too-hard thud of his heartbeat. That’s his father’s old unit, that’s _Bucky’s_ unit.

If these men were the last survivors of the 107th, and Bucky wasn’t with them—and Bucky _hadn’t_ been, couldn’t have been, because Bucky would never let Steve get away with making quite that big a fool of himself, not unless he was doing it _because_ of Bucky—then that meant Bucky—

Steve doesn’t remember deciding to find Colonel Phillips, and he doesn’t remember the walk—the sprint, really—to the command tent. He remembers sad understanding dawning in the Colonel’s eyes, and him giving Steve a look that’s actually almost compassionate as he says, “I’m sorry.”

It’s as though the world comes back into sharp, horrible focus.

Bucky didn’t make it back.

#

Steve is going after the survivors. There’s just—no other option.

He’s going after them, and he’s going to find Bucky.

Peggy says she’ll help, sympathy plain on her face even though it’s not in her voice. She gets Stark to help too, even though he mostly just looks baffled and skeptical.

“Good luck, kid,” Stark says, as Steve’s strapping on his parachute. “You’re gonna need it.”

Steve doesn’t need luck, though. He needs Bucky.

He goes to get him.

#

“Is there anybody else? I’m looking for a Sergeant James Barnes,” Steve says, looking around at all the surprised, grateful faces of the men he’s just let out of their cage-cells. None of them are Bucky. “There must be somewhere else. There _must_ be.”

A man in a British uniform, one of the first Steve set free, has his mouth open to reply, but something in Steve’s tone seems to give him pause. He glances at a couple of the others, the ones who were in his cage, and closes his mouth.

The big man in the bowler hat clears his throat. “The factory’s got an isolation ward,” he says, gruff, without meeting Steve’s eyes.

Whatever this ward is, then, it’s _bad_. Steve swallows down the new tightness in his throat and keeps moving.

“The tree line is northwest, eighty yards past the gate. Get out fast and give ‘em hell,” he tells the prisoners, already heading for the door. Over his shoulder, he adds, “I’ll tell anyone else I find to meet you guys in the clearing.”

Behind him, he thinks he hears one of them ask if he knows what he’s doing, but Steve doesn’t have time to answer, or to care.

One more place to look for Bucky, and if he’s not _there_ either, Steve’s not going to rest until he tears through the whole complex room by room. Brick by brick, if he has to. Bucky’s not dead and rotting on an abandoned battlefield somewhere; Steve refuses even the idea.

Bucky’s here, somewhere, _alive_ , and Steve’s gonna find him.

#

Bucky’s in the isolation ward.

He looks like Hell come to Earth.

But he sees Steve, and he _smiles_.

#

The men Steve freed are waiting in the clearing, like Steve suggested. They seem…surprised, to see him. More surprised, to see Bucky, most of his weight supported by his arm over Steve’s shoulder. He’d been doing okay, then that last explosion as they were heading for the tree line had knocked him flat. Steve thinks some of the debris might have hit him, but he can’t tell where, and Bucky’s not saying.

“Is this him, then,” the big man with the bowler hat says, coming up to them cautiously. He doesn’t try to get in under Bucky’s other arm and help support him, like Steve would have expected. He doesn’t touch Bucky at all, in fact, just looms in close. “Your Sergeant James Barnes?”

Steve can’t read the other man’s expression, but it sounds like a challenge, so he lifts his chin—he can feel Bucky’s gaze, steady on the side of his face—and says, “He is.”

“Well,” says the Brit from before, his eyes darting between Steve and Bucky. “All right, then.”

For some reason it feels like the words are supposed to mean more than they seem on the surface. Steve chooses not to worry about what’s going on underneath; he’s got Bucky back, here in arm’s reach where he belongs. Now that he’s got him, he can get him back to the command base and medical attention, and after that—Well, Steve’s not letting Bucky leave him behind again. Not now there’s no reason.

There’s nothing worth worrying about.

#

The WAC serving as Mr Stark’s secretary lights up the first time Steve comes in to see him, for the meeting about weapons and gear that Peggy said he wanted. Steve doesn’t think anything of it, at first.

The secretary thanks him for saving all those men, which Steve accepts with as much grace as he can, thinking of Bucky and how glad he is not to have been too late.

Only then, she won’t _leave him alone_.

“Their soul mates must be very grateful,” she says, all sweetness.

“I think some of them were each others soul mates,” Steve says awkwardly, thinking of Jones and Dernier. They hadn’t said anything, but they were always standing close, and their language barrier was closer to non-existent than it really should have been. He didn’t think it was the kind of bond you had with someone you’d marry, more like the kind that made soul mates like brothers thicker than blood—but it wasn’t really his place, so he hadn’t asked, and he didn’t know for sure. He wasn’t going to judge, either way.

“They must have been extra grateful, then,” she says.

“Um, sure, I suppose,” Steve says. He can’t think of anything else.

The next moment, he doesn’t need to.

She grabs his tie and pulls him down, presses her lips to his. It makes Steve shudder, but not with anything like pleasure, or attraction. He thinks about what his soul mate would think of this, if he had one, and he freezes. Then he thinks of _Bucky_ , and jerks his head away, staggers a step backward only to be caught up short by her grip on his tie—and then back even farther as he loses his balance and his weight pulls him free, to her startled yelp.

He lands on his ass on the ground.

That’s how Peggy finds him, and it doesn’t look like she even try to disguise how she laughs at him.

#

Stark isn’t sympathetic, either.

“She’s a good looking dame, Rogers. Why didn’t you just let her kiss you?”

“We aren’t soul mates,” Steve says, stiffly. It’s an easier answer than mentioning Bucky, but less true.

Stark scoffs. “You don’t have to be soul mates to have a good time.”

“Maybe _you_ don’t,” Steve replies.

Stark doesn’t scoff again. His mouth twists, and a dark look flashes over his face, there and gone again. Steve immediately feels like some kind of heel, though he doesn’t know why he should.

“I meant—” he starts, intending to apologize but not sure exactly how.

“I don’t have a bond,” Stark says. He darts a look at Steve, and there’s something sly and more than a little sharp in it. “And I mean, I _really_ don’t have one.”

Steve furrows his brow. “But, you’re—”

“Almost your age, yeah,” Stark agrees. He shrugs, far too loose and casual, so relaxed about it that it _must_ be practiced. It makes Steve’s chest hurt.

“Oh,” Steve says, and he can’t keep the sympathy out of even that single word.

Stark’s smile is dry, and almost mocking. There’s certainly very little humor in it. “Yeah. That’s the pits, isn’t it.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, looking away. “The pits.”

#

Bucky falls.

Steve is pretty sure he falls too, even though his body’s still right there in the train car, doesn’t leave the train car. Part of him never seems to leave it.

Without Bucky, the War is. Well, it’s _war_ , it was never anything approaching _fun_ , but when there’s no Bucky—no Bucky up high keeping Steve safe with a sniper rifle ready to take out any threats Steve or the Commandos miss; no Bucky standing at Steve’s shoulder over the maps while Steve plans their approach against the next Hydra base; no Bucky to meet him back at camp and remind Steve what he’s fighting for with just a smile; no Bucky to throw an arm around Steve’s shoulders like he used to; no Bucky ever again—the whole thing seems infinitely harder and more horrible. Bleaker, darker, colder.

Steve just wants it to be _over_.

It starts to seem like it never will be.

#

The Howling Commandos are all stepping on eggshells around him. Especially Gabe and Jacques, who seem to be making a point to never touch when he’s around to see. Steve wonders how bad he must look, that they’re being so careful with him. It can’t be as bad as he feels.

Everyone’s trying to decide how to take care of the last Hydra base, before whatever big awful thing Schmidt is planning has time to happen, because they can’t simply go in the front door, and—

“Why can’t we?” Steve asks. The silence that follows feels like a graveyard.

Nobody argues with Steve’s idea of going in head-on. That should probably upset him; it’s stupid, and reckless, and he _knows_ it. It doesn’t upset him.

#

Steve’s last thought, as the ground comes rushing up to meet the Hydra plane, is that he hopes he really _doesn’t_ have a soul mate out there, after all. That there isn’t some kid somewhere looking forward to their eighteenth birthday and Steve’s feelings in their head, because Steve’s not gonna be there. He’s never gonna be there. Better Steve be bondless, than this war leave another poor kid waiting on a soul mate they’ll never meet, feeling the broken emptiness of losing Steve instead.

And, well, it’s not like he truly means it—but he’s closer to it than he ever has been.

“If you’re out there,” he whispers, lost in the roaring crash of ice against steel, “I’m sor—”

Water rushes in, and the world goes dark.

* * *

Steve opens his eyes to brightness, a chill in the air blowing softly over his face and bare arms, and a radio nearby broadcasting a baseball game.

He’s cold, and the light _hurts_ his eyes. Why that should be significant, he doesn’t—

Steve’s _eyes open_.

It almost doesn’t matter that the ball game is impossible, that the supposed military nurse’s hair and dress and accent aren’t quite right, that the buildings outside the windows are too still, that the ambient noises are wrong, because Steve _opens_ his _eyes_ , and that means he’s _alive_.

“—recovery room in New York City,” the nurse says, and it doesn’t quite seem like a lie but she can’t be telling the truth. She can’t be.

Steve stands up, slowly; he’s stiff all over, all his muscles feel rubbery, at once disused and overworked. It reminds him of the first day after a long sickness, back before the serum—when he was as likely to catch cold or have an asthma attack as he was to see the sun, or Bucky.

He makes it, though, holds himself straight and tall, and is relieved that for all his stiffness it doesn’t feel like anything is really wrong. He can _move_ , if he needs to.

“Where am I, really?” he demands, and is glad yet again for the extra inches that let him stare her down without tipping his head back.

She’s still opening her mouth to answer, and Steve _really_ wants to know what she’s going to say—

A bolt of shock goes through him, that isn’t his own, a sharp sense of _what the hell_ , and Steve realizes that he _isn’t alone in his head_.

Steve bolts.

He doesn’t even think about it, doesn’t wait for the nurse’s answer, nothing. He breaks through a wall, half by accident, finds himself in a big empty room that echoes like a warehouse, where there are men with guns, and Steve _runs_. These people, whoever they are, haven’t been honest with him, have lied to him—and there’s someone out there for Steve, someone overwhelmed with panic. Somewhere out there is somebody that Steve can feel in his mind, who is terrified and alarmed.

It’s like hearing that Bucky’s lost behind enemy lines all over again, only _worse_ this time because he can _feel_ it. Of _course_ he runs.

The world outside looks different and strange.

He doesn’t get far, maybe a few blocks. Shiny black vehicles, sleeker and sharper than Steve is used to, pull up surrounding him. There are soldiers, too, weapons out even if they aren’t pointed at him, and a man with an eye patch and a long, black leather coat coming toward Steve like he has nothing to fear from Steve.

Steve is disoriented and confused—in the back of his mind there’s a presence he’d always hoped for but never truly believed he had, isn’t sure he believes in now, and whoever they are they’re going all shocky—There is _everything_ to fear from Steve.

The man in the eye patch and coat stops just out of reach, before Steve’s better sense is in danger of giving into the animal instinct to throw a punch.

“Stand down, soldier,” Eye Patch says. His voice is full of easy, confident authority.

Steve’s shoulders go down and back, and his fists uncurl, before he even realizes it’s happening.

“We thought it best to break it to you slowly,” Eye Patch says, finally, giving Steve a steady, appraising look. “Apparently, we were wrong.”

Steve is still lost, still doesn’t get it—Break _what_ to—

Eye Patch must pick up on Steve’s confusion, because he says, “You’ve been asleep, Cap.”

Everything tilts. Steve listens with only half an ear to the rest of the explanation from Eye Patch. For a second, he’s in a different place, a different body; rapid, shallow breathing familiar and strange in lungs that don’t scream like struggling for air is normal but are straining anyway, and a voice he doesn’t know demanding Sir’s attention and not getting it. The truth finally filters in, sinks down deep, and Steve’s back in his body and he knows.

He _knows_.

The world is noisy, crowded, and full of too much color—Steve’s been asleep for almost seventy years—and Bucky’s still dead, dead, _dead_ —but _Steve’s alive_. He has a soul mate. Everyone else is gone, everything Steve’s ever known—

He has a _soul mate_.

Bucky’s dead, and Steve has a fucking soul mate.

 _Everything has changed_.


End file.
